In Newton in my Fluid

Weather:  36F, Clear, light wind from the NNW 3-5mph.  This was a head wind heading down river.  It was only a factor in the straight section in front of the watch factory.

Plan:

• 4 x 2800m
• 3-5min rest
• Rate: 24-26
• Pace: ~2:15
• HR Cap: None –> Target TR zone
• Technique:  Clean Finishes.

Workout Summary - media/20161107-143843-78581o.csv
--|Total|-Total-|--Avg--|Avg-|-Avg-|-Max-|-Avg
--|Dist-|-Time--|-Pace--|SPM-|-HR--|-HR--|-DPS
--|13608|71:23.0|02:37.4|23.1|150.5|170.0|08.2
W-|11198|51:40.0|02:18.4|24.8|160.0|170.0|08.7
R-|03680|27:30.0|03:44.3|19.1|123.4|170.0|07.9
Workout Details
#-|SDist|-Split-|-SPace-|SPM-|AvgHR|MaxHR|DPS-
02|02820|12:55.7|02:17.5|25.1|158.4|164.0|08.7
03|02804|12:46.9|02:16.8|24.7|160.1|166.0|08.9
04|02753|13:05.1|02:22.6|24.5|160.9|166.0|08.6
05|02821|12:52.3|02:16.9|24.9|160.4|170.0|08.8

A very good workout.  I pushed hard, but tried to stick to r24, and that kept the HR in a reasonable place.  I wanted to focus more on rowing clean than driving for the best possible pace.

The one interesting thing from the workout is the sharp deceleration at 6000m.  I was going through the s-turn and a goose did not get out of my way quickly enough.  I hit it hard with my oar during recovery, and lost my grip on the handle.  Luckily, the force of the “bird strike” pushed the handle toward my torso.  It was trapped between my leg and chest and I could grab it again quickly.  Good thing too, because the blade was flipping from feathered to square and starting to really catch water.  I think I avoided a flip by a fraction of a second.  Usually the geese are smart enough to get out of my way.  I think this specific goose will probably do so in the future.

Here’s a quick look at stroke metrics.

The loop down to 20 spm at the bottom is my “bird strike”.

I did a plot of each interval to see if I could see the effect of the light headwind.  The left column is against the headwind, the right column is with the wind.

Now I am off to San Jose and LA for the week.  I will probably stick to cross training at hotel gyms for this trip.  Maybe try to do a couple of strength sessions.